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Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#171

Post by laxatives »

philangist wrote: post #14

> They said Avid Life employees first learned about the breach on July 12 (seven days before my initial story) when they came into work, turned on their computers and saw a threatening message from the Impact Team accompanied by the anthem “Thunderstruck” by Australian rock band AC/DC playing in the background. This reads like a scene straight out of Hackers or some other campy tech movie. Life imitates art.

The most surprising part of that story to me is that AC/DC is Australian. I had no idea. I always assumed they were Brits.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#172

Post by genericacct »

maaku wrote: post #122
x0x0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in order: how to get the money: bitcoin, move to russia and use wire transfers, launder it through lawyers, etc life afterwards: one hell of a lot richer fbi: part of the agreement is ashley doesn't go to the fbi, again, with the full data release hanging over their heads. And no, I don't think the fbi would be particularly motivated. They have plenty on their plates. Because, crucially, Ashley Madison wants this to…

The FBI wouldn't want to be involved either. What high-level bureaucrat wants to defend themselves in front of a congressional investigation about why they spent taxpayer dollars keeping marriage infidelities private instead of X, forall X they could have been working on instead?

Isn't AM a Canadian company anyway? No way to get the FBI involved in this case.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#173

Post by unreal37 »

tempVariable wrote: post #149

I know it's a giant long shot, and the Zhu is not using his own IP/ISP, but could the FBI use the screenshot showing his desktop with Twitter, Youtube, Google and do an intersection of IPs on those services for the pattern that matches his use on those services ? The twitter user Zhu, who listened to Thunderstruck and went to Google within a time period. edit: I'd like to have 1% of the $500k bounty wired in Dogecoin…

I'm going to guess that if the NSA was at all interested in this guy, they know exactly who he is already. But they're probably not.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#174

Post by icebraining »

nostrebored wrote: post #90
ori_b wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if a ton of these people are non-monogamous, then perhaps we as a society should have a discussion about how our values are shifting and what new families look like Why should we have that discussion? If my spouse was cheating, I'd want to have that discussion in private , without gawkers, and without social pressure from the uninvolved.

If you had the option of knowing that your spouse was cheating via dox, or not knowing at all which would you choose? I would still contend that you do get to have the discussions surrounding all of this in private, if you choose, or in public amidst people who are going through the same thing that you are through discussions like these, the legal system, etc. What about the scores of people to whom cheating is a dea…

I would still contend that you do get to have the discussions surrounding all of this in private, if you choose

How so, when all your neighbors and family members can know?

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#175

Post by jsprogrammer »

icebraining wrote: post #166
jsprogrammer wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Married people's thoughts on monogamy are irrelevant. The argument was that the breach of contract is no one else's business except for the two parties to that contract. This was rebutted by someone claiming that they hold value in knowledge about another's breach of a contract. What I don't understand is the reasoning that says a breach of contract is only meaningful to the parties of the contract. If someone is inf…

The argument isn't that it isn't meaningful, it's that it shouldn't be.

Well, I reviewed the argument that I was referring to and it wasn't what you are claiming.

Here's the text:

>Then that's a breach of contract between two private parties which is of absolutely no relevance to outside observers.

The argument claimed that the breach was "of absolutely no relevance". Yes, the word "meaningful" wasn't used, but I dare you to provide a definition of the word "meaningful".

>The argument isn't that it isn't meaningful, it's that it shouldn't be.

Can you point me to someone making that argument?

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#176

Post by flycaliguy »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #22
philangist wrote: post #14

> They said Avid Life employees first learned about the breach on July 12 (seven days before my initial story) when they came into work, turned on their computers and saw a threatening message from the Impact Team accompanied by the anthem “Thunderstruck” by Australian rock band AC/DC playing in the background. This reads like a scene straight out of Hackers or some other campy tech movie. Life imitates art.

It's art imitating life. Old school warez, demoscene and hacker groups have always had a very "campy" countercultural aesthetic to them. Hackers the film doesn't hold a candle to the real-life cDc. These types of groups are a dying breed, though.

There is some academic writing on the subject I can't find at the moment. Basically the idea that Hackers are the modern day tricksters of mythology. Sneaky, morally ambiguous, possessing mysterious powers over our surroundings. It's important to be over the top and silly with your hacks.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#177

Post by icebraining »

nostrebored wrote: post #94
peejaybee wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same "not sticking our noses into other people's relationships" was the root of the Family Values crowd in the 80's saying that domestic violence is a family issue, incest is a family issue, etc. Where do you draw the line at sticking your nose into other people's relationships? How about we put the line somewhere between physical force and broken promises? Just an idea.

I'm glad you can so easily weigh the damage of a punch vs. years of deceit. My impact calculus is a bit different.

The fact that one is a crime and the other isn't implies that we have generally decided that punching is worse. Feel free to lobby otherwise, though.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#178

Post by icebraining »

superuser2 wrote: post #36
Scarbutt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the push was more of a law that let users delete their data immediately and completely from a service with the click of a button.

Any architecture that facilitates this will lose massive amounts of customer data, full stop. Backups have to be in places where live systems can't touch them, or can append only. Backups have to be offline and immutable. If you can mutate a backup based on a user request, it's not a backup. Offline backups are, however, pretty hard to steal (unless you're stealing the physical tapes). So... immediately, maybe. Compl…

That's what encryption is for - burn the key, and the backups are useless even if they're immutable.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#179

Post by carlio »

laxatives wrote: post #171
philangist wrote: post #14

> They said Avid Life employees first learned about the breach on July 12 (seven days before my initial story) when they came into work, turned on their computers and saw a threatening message from the Impact Team accompanied by the anthem “Thunderstruck” by Australian rock band AC/DC playing in the background. This reads like a scene straight out of Hackers or some other campy tech movie. Life imitates art.

The most surprising part of that story to me is that AC/DC is Australian. I had no idea. I always assumed they were Brits.

They were all born in Scotland but lived in Australia, iirc. Then the singer died and Brian Johnson, who is English, became the new frontman.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#180

Post by humanrebar »

oldmanjay wrote: post #152
humanrebar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then that's a breach of contract between two private parties which is of absolutely no relevance to outside observers. That's one way to look at things. I happen to have a different philosophy about marriage, that it actually does affect other people, and since you're so understanding, I'm sure you'll grant that my philosophy is equally valid.

If your philosophy involves your opinions mattering in people's private concerns, no, it's not valid.

No. I think marriages actually affect people not involved in the marriage commitment itself. Especially when you consider populations and not just hypothetical individuals.
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